Crack Shot
by findinghero
Summary: What if there were no terrorist in the warehouse to ruin Ari's perfect shot of McGee?  Spoilers for Twilight  Very mild Highlander Crossover. Canon character death ONLY.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: What if there were no terrorist in the warehouse to ruin Ari's perfect shot of McGee? (Spoilers for Twilight) _Very_ mild Highlander Crossover. Canon character death ONLY.

Disclaimer: Not mine, and no money made here.

With thanks to Precious Pup—who rocks!—for the beta ;-)

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><p>His eyes scan the horizon from the second Kate's body hits the roof. There's not a flash of movement, not a hint of sunlight hitting a scope, not even a sound beyond the distant traffic, the faint cry of seagulls, and Tony's harsh breathing behind him.<p>

Gibbs swallows hard, but he knows Ari's already gone, already gotten what he came for. But as long as he keeps his eyes on the naked buildings around him, Gibbs can't turn around to look at Kate's body splayed out in blood between him and DiNozzo.

"McGee," a breath of a sound escaping Gibbs' lips. "McGee," he hollers into his earpiece this time, fear creeping up on him like a vise grip in his chest.

He looks above Kate's body, past it to DiNozzo. "No," Tony just shakes his head, and Gibbs can see the panic rising in his senior agent in that frantic jerking.

DiNozzo takes off, runs through the building and down the stairs. Gibbs trails him, keeps his pace. When he gets to the ground floor, Tony throws the door open, slams it against the side of the building. From behind him, Gibbs can see McGee's legs, sticking out, unmoving, from the far side of the car.

McGee's leg jolts in the distance. "He's alive," DiNozzo yells in triumph. Tony rounds their vehicle first. "Oh God, he's alive," a scream this time.

And when Gibbs comes around the car, the sight steals his breath from his lungs—McGee laid out beside the car, eyes blinking, limbs twitching, grey matter slowly leaking out of the hole that sideswiped his head just shy of the mercy necessary to kill him quickly.

Tony rounds McGee's side, grabs Tim's hand in his. His other palm hovers around McGee's neck for a moment, indecisive, until Tony finally rests it on Tim's shoulder. "Probie," Tony whispers, barely breathing himself.

Gibbs drops to his knees at McGee's feet, glad for the sting of the rocks and glass cutting through his pants to his skin. He needs that pain. He deserves so much more for his egotistical miscalculation. He grips McGee's ankle, the scent of iron and death filling his nostrils as McGee's blood soaks the asphalt beneath him.

He feels the twitch in McGee's leg as the younger man fights to live. But the wound is too much for anyone's body to overcome. McGee's already dead. His body's just catching up to the fact.

"We're here, Tim," Gibbs locks his jaw, tries to lock away the scream in his throat, the pain bleeding into every part of him. McGee needs him calm and certain. He deserves some measure of peace in his last moments. "You're not alone," Gibbs offers the only sort of reassurance you can really give to a dying man.

McGee raises his eyes to look at Gibbs, brow furrowed, uncomprehending. Gibbs gnashes his teeth together and fights hard not to look away.

"Tony," McGee says, his gaze moving to the other man, "My head," and his fingers twitch as if he's trying to point.

"I know," Tony chokes, almost hyperventilating as the splatters of Kate's drying blood yield to tear tracks running down his cheeks.

McGee shuts his eyes, his features relaxing, and Gibbs tightens his grip and holds his breath. "No," the boy forces the word with a heave of his chest. "Help," he gasps and opens his eyes. "Put it back…together," his words are just this side of unintelligible, and this time, body shaking with effort, McGee does twitch his fingers far enough to point towards his head.

Tony nods frantically, "Right," his says, a strangled sound, and follows the direction as if it's a realistic, obvious request that Tony should have thought of already. Hands trembling, Tony reaches for the pieces of McGee's skull and the bits of brain matter he can scavenge from the ground.

McGee's breath comes heavily. He's fighting so hard, and it's terrible and incredible, and Gibbs should have known the kid had it in him to hold on for so long, but now underestimating McGee is just another regret Gibbs'll have from now on.

"Push," McGee insists when Tony just tries to hold Tim's broken pieces beside his head.

Gibbs breathes hard out of his nose. It's not worth it to cause McGee more pain than he has to have, but it's what McGee's asking for, and it's something Tony can do for him.

And so Gibbs keeps his mouth shut, and Tony obeys like he can't imagine doing anything else. McGee's leg seizes up under Gibbs' hand, his gaze becoming less clouded for just a moment as he breathes through the increased intensity of the pain.

"Harder," McGee orders, his voice stronger, gaining that momentum that some men get just before they die.

"Probie," Tony gasps—the only sob Gibbs has ever heard from him—but Tony pushes harder in unwilling compliance.

McGee's breaths come more slowly now, a softening and slowing wheeze with every slight rise and fall of his chest. Gibbs tightens his grip on McGee even more, hoping the boy can feel him there with him, hoping he finds comfort in it, maybe even hoping to tether McGee there to himself.

The harsh gulping breaths cease about another thirty seconds later. And then there's silence. And the silence left over is like another death by itself.

Tony's tears stall, as if even they wish to respect the stillness of the dead. None of this should be happening—Kate dead on the roof just as the elation and relief of that close call had really hit them, McGee dead on the street where he should have been relatively sheltered from the gunfire. It's too fucking much.

He doesn't know how long he and Tony sit there in the alley without speaking. They need to get up, secure the scene, call Ducky, call Director Morrow, make sure the local LEOs can find the scene through the maze of warehouses. But Tony doesn't move, and Gibbs doesn't say a word.

"Why?" Tony sniffs loudly, breaking the near reverence for their dead in the quiet between the men. "I can't…Not both of them, Boss." Tony brushes his fingers against McGee's brow—lightly, with exaggerated and completely heartfelt care—giving comfort that will never be received.

And Kate's prone form transposes over McGee's in Gibb's mind, and Gibbs closes his eyes against the image only to see each of his dead agents dying anew beneath his lids. "They didn't die alone," is all there is to say.

Later, he'll have to tell Kate's parents and McGee's parents how they died with honor in service to their country, how they saved lives, but those words don't exist between Gibbs and Tony, because they know firsthand, despite the honor, despite the worthiness of their sacrifice, they both deserved better.

McGee's eyes are still open, and Tony doesn't shut them and won't look away from them either. Tony won't even move his hand from where it still reaches around to the back of McGee's head, as if he could hold in that incredible brain of McGee's if he presses hard enough. As if McGee could still be saved.

Gibbs lays a hand on Tony's shoulder, offering him whatever peace he can and hoping to find a little bit of strength from the contact himself. There's nothing they can do for McGee now, nothing they can do for either of their fallen agents. Gibbs retrieves his cell phone from his pocket, clearing his throat and trying to work up to what he has to say to the emergency responders. He shuts his eyes against the thought.

"Haaah!" a sucking breath below them makes Gibbs drop his phone.

Gibbs opens his eyes to see McGee blinking and reaching out to grab Tony's shirt.

"Oh my God!" Tony shakes where he's sitting, hands visibly trembling where he's still holding on to McGee. Gibbs grabs McGee's leg again, grip fierce, his heartbeat as fast as a train as he checks for a pulse in McGee's ankle.

"McGee!" he shakes his agent's leg when he finds McGee's blood pumping under his skin after the second try. "McGee!" Gibbs hollers in disbelief, and McGee looks right at him.

"Boss?" McGee blinks, his chest moving cleanly, unlabored.

"Probie?" Tony immediately smiles at the strength in McGee's tone. Tony turns his head and twists his shoulder to swipe at his nose with the bit of sleeve covering his shoulder. "You're alive! Boss!" Tony tilts his head towards him without glancing away from McGee. "Call an ambulance. He's gonna make it! You're gonna make it," he whispers fiercely to McGee like he won't take no for an answer. DiNozzo keeps his hand pressed to the back of McGee's head, his shoulders rising with renewed hope.

Gibbs barely picks up his phone when McGee lifts his own hand to Tony's where it grips the side of his head, fingers prying away to loosen the older man's grip.

"Don't call," McGee says softly, hesitantly. "I'm okay."

Gibbs shakes his head, McGee was shot through his skull. He must be delirious to think he's alright, except his eyes are clear, and he's moving smoothly, without pain. As if to prove his words, McGee tries to sit up. Both Tony and Gibbs each lay a firm hand on the probie.

"No, no, Tim. Be still," Gibbs orders, and pulls his other hand up to dial the phone, except…with his eyes on McGee now, Gibbs hesitates, doesn't move a finger towards the buttons because less than a minute ago, McGee wasn't breathing, and now, aside from the blood all over his head and his shirt, he doesn't look hurt at all.

"Boss," Tony looks back at him when he doesn't hear Gibbs make the phone call. "What the hell are you doing? Give me the damn phone!" he orders, but doesn't make a grab for it, doesn't dare jostle his grip on McGee's head.

"Look at him, Tony," Gibbs jerks his head towards McGee. "He was dead a minute ago!" Tony locks his jaw at Gibbs' words. "You don't come back from that. No one does."

The two older agents stare at one another, twin deadlocked glares not backing down. When this newest silence is broken, it's by McGee.

"I do, Boss," McGee confesses, eyes wide and unclouded and sincere. "I come back from that," McGee purses his lips together. "I don't know why, but I do."

McGee tries to sit up again, but Tony won't give an inch, so Tim shuffles his feet instead, and Gibbs obligingly lets go of his ankle. McGee raises his knees, feet flat on the asphalt.

"I swear, I'm okay," he promises. "Feel my head," he offers, trying to get Tony to budge his fingers, "the wound's already healed."

Tony shakes his own noggin back and forth, "No," he refuses to ease his palm away, as if his grip really is the only thing keeping McGee alive.

"Tony, you have to let me up before anyone else gets here," McGee begs, jaw locked. "What do you think they'll do to me if they find out my body can do this?"

"You need an ambulance," Tony insists, but Gibbs can see the doubt in his posture, the confusion in the way he holds his lip.

McGee looks to Gibbs, "Boss?"

Gibbs narrows his gaze at the boy, watches him plead for trust with his eyes, and then Gibbs does what he always does when faced with an impossible decision: He trusts his gut. "DiNozzo, get the first aid kit from the trunk."

"Boss!" Tony whips his head towards him, eyes wide and betrayed.

Gibbs vaults into DiNozzo's space and twists Tony's head with a sharp jolt to force his senior agent's eyes to McGee, "Look at him, Tony!" he orders once again. "Really look at him!" Tony's breathing becomes harsher when Gibbs shoves him down a little more with a palm to the back of the head. "He's not going to die!" he promises. "But he still needs us to save him."

Tony angles his head back towards Gibbs, confusion muddying his features.

"Go get the kit," Gibbs levels his stare.

Tony takes a harsh breath but eases his grip on McGee's head by increments. When McGee nods and remains intact, Tony slowly lets him go a little more, finally settling McGee's head onto the ground. DiNozzo stands up, eyes never leaving McGee, and fetches the first aid box from the trunk.

McGee sits up the moment Tony reaches into the boot.

"Where's Kate?" McGee asks. When neither of the other men answers, McGee looks at them a little more closely. "Where is she?" more softly this time, voice trembling.

When Gibbs shakes his head, McGee drops his eyes and bites a pinch of his lower lip. He stands abruptly, walks a few feet away before either Gibbs or Tony can react.

Gibbs locks his jaw, amazed despite himself at McGee's mobility. He moves in behind McGee, not sure himself if he means to catch Tim if he falls or to tackle him if he tries to run away. He clasps the younger man's shoulder, the bloody mess of the back of his head showing no visible injuries. Tony must be able to spot it, too, because Gibbs can practically feel his senior agent's disbelief coming off him in waves.

"Get out the alcohol, the gauze, and tape," Gibbs demands of Tony, his gaze locked on the evidence of McGee's unbelievable recovery. "We have to hurry."

They do a rush job of it, throwing the wipes they use to remove the worst of the blood into a plastic bag before they wrap an unearthly amount of gauze around the matted area where the wound magically disappeared. Both Gibbs and Tony take a good look up close and thoroughly but quickly probe the unblemished area on the back of McGee's skull before they cover it up.

Gibbs calls 911 just as Tony piles on another whopping hunk of tape to McGee's bandage. The police cars are literally three warehouses down from them when Gibbs calls the emergency response. Kate had been the one to make the call the first time, a bare twenty minutes ago, when the team had first notified the local LEOs of the impending terrorist attack. The four of them hadn't known then which building Ari had settled the cell into, which building Kate would die atop.

The cops come in two cars. Tony stares at Tim, a dumb look plastered on his features, as Gibbs lays out the situation for the LEOs. The two sets of patrolmen watch his agents with concern while Gibbs explains Kate's dead body on the roof of the building beside them and McGee's bullet wound, a graze, Gibbs forces himself to say, to the head.

"He's in shock," one of the older patrolmen points to Tony.

Gibbs tilts his chin. "Sending them to the hospital as soon as the first ambulance gets here."

"The ambulance is a ways out. The first one they sent ran into an accident on the way over. He needs to go now," the man insists. "They both should," he points a finger towards the thick bandage spanning McGee's head, covering a blanket of scabs but not a single wound.

Gibbs nods reluctantly. "Can you take him?" Gibbs squints when he asks, not wanting the boys out of his sight, but knowing even still that Tony may really need help, and Tim's got to get out of here before Ducky arrives, otherwise the good doctor will insist on examining the nonexistent injury. "Our car's part of the crime scene now."

"Absolutely," the patrolman nods in assurance, seeming to sense Gibbs' hesitance if not the reasoning behind it.

Gibbs nods his thanks and walks to McGee. He pauses in front of him, unable to keep from staring at McGee's face, at the animation behind his eyes. Gibbs shakes his head to get himself back on track. "Tim, I need you to make sure Tony's okay," he instructs, voice low, but not whispering, not wanting to call attention to his words, "and then you need to leave the hospital as soon as you can do it without anyone noticing. Go somewhere to clean up and then call me when you get settled," he orders, hoping his words can give McGee the direction he needs to keep the two of them safe since Gibbs can't do it himself.

"Yes, Boss," McGee nods, brows furrowed and mouth twitching with whatever he wants to say but can't right now.

McGee turns to leave, but Gibbs grabs his arm. He squeezes tight, not wanting to let go. McGee looks right back at Gibbs and lifts his brows, eyes wide and as innocent as McGee's have always been. Gibbs pats the younger man's cheek, fingers spanning underneath his jawline. McGee drops his chin a touch, his eyes warming up to somewhere between pleasure and embarrassment at the display of affection, and he clasps Gibbs' arm in return. Then Gibbs lets him and Tony get into the back of the police car, and he turns back to take care of Kate.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony honestly doesn't remember a thing between bandaging Probie's head and sneaking out of the emergency room. In fact, his memory doesn't start getting truly clear until McGee practically pushes him out of the taxi and orders him to check them into a motel a few miles from the hospital. McGee had already made reservations and even paid for the room over the phone or something. All Tony had to do was pick up the keycard.

The forced interaction with other people in the hotel lobby brings Tony back to reality some more, and when he slips back outside toward the bushes McGee is not-quite hiding behind, he's ready to take back a little bit of normal and bitch McGee out for making him go in by himself. That's when he sees the blood all over Probie's shirt.

"Kate's dead," he hears himself say, standing stock still.

Probie looks down between them, his Adam's apple jerks up and down, and he looks Tony right in the eye. "I know."

"And you were…you were—"

"I _know_, Tony," Probie moves closer and grabs Tony's arm. "But we have to get inside _right now_."

Tony looks away and nods.

"What room are we in?" Probie asks.

Tony shakes his head, squinting in effort but unable to recall what the clerk said. "I'm not—"

McGee offers a sympathetic smile and takes the keycard, with the room number written on its envelope, out of Tony's hand. "It's okay," he squeezes Tony's hand when he speaks. He lets go of it quickly, but Tony almost wishes he hadn't, needing something to ground him when nothing makes sense.

McGee leads Tony to a room on the ground floor. He lets Tony go in first upon opening the door. He latches both locks the second they're inside, then Probie removes a bag from his shoulder that Tony hadn't even realized he was carrying.

"Hospital scrubs," Probie says when he sees Tony staring. "Gonna have to wear _something_ after I trash this," he opens both palms towards his ruined shirt and pants.

He seems like he wants Tony to make some sort of joke or comment, but Tony just nods, unsure of what he could say.

McGee drops his eyes to the space between them. "I'm going to go take a shower," he points a thumb behind him. He takes a step towards Tony. "Are you gonna be alright?" he speaks softly, as if to a child.

"I think I can handle being alone for five minutes, Probie," he injects as much vitriol into the statement as he can.

McGee just furrows his brow like he's not sure if he believes him.

"Go!" Tony shoos McGee into the other room.

McGee takes his cue this time, and Tony hears the shower start up a bare fifteen seconds later. Of course, Probie must be dying to get all that sticky dried blood off himself. Head wounds get really nasty for the way they matte up your hair. _Probie must be dying_, the phrase repeats in Tony's head on a loop. _No_, Tony reminds himself, _He did die, but apparently he got over it._

Tony sits down heavily onto the edge of the bed nearest the window, rubs his face with both hands, then lets his fingers dangle between his knees. For a few seconds, he can almost believe it was all a dream—every bit of it. The unreal quality of everything that happened once Probie woke up lends to the idea, and for a minute, there's a running theory in Tony's head, that it's not just McGee, but Kate that's alive, too. If one death isn't real, then why can't both of them be fake? It seems a realistic consideration in Tony's mind for a full five seconds.

He takes a ragged breath as he remembers the sound of that bullet and watching Kate fall right afterward, remembers how he stood there, paralyzed, just looking at her open eyes—her dead eyes—until Boss said Probie's name. Tony feels his breathing speed up, tries to slow it down before he hyperventilates, tries to clear his mind. He was a cop for six years, been a federal agent for four, he can fucking handle this. Except the truth is, he doesn't think he can.

The shower turns off in the next room. The quiet clicks and shuffles of movement confirm what he knows to be true—Probie's alive. Tony doesn't know how, felt that hole eating Tim's head himself, but somehow McGee's still kicking.

But Kate—he closes his eyes, tries to close off the thought, but the image comes back, and seeing that hole in the back of Kate's head mixes with the memory of feeling the chunk missing from Probie's. Tony doesn't even realize he's moving until he's already puking in the sink on the other side of the room. He notices, but doesn't pay attention to, the way the soft sounds from inside the bathroom stop, then start again at twice their previous pace. The door doesn't open until Tony stops retching and rinses his mouth out with a swig or two from the faucet. He splashes a little water on his face, and that's when he realizes Kate's blood is still spritzed all over his skin like an errant squirt of spray paint.

Tony lifts his head slowly, trying to prepare himself for what he'll see in the mirror. But when he finally pulls his eyes up to look, his face is clear, unblemished by Kate's blood. He raises a finger to his right cheek, remembering how he'd felt the warm rush of liquid spray his face while he watched Kate's body hit the ground.

Probie clears his throat the way he does when he wants to say something but is worried about how he'll be received. Tony glances to his left in the mirror, finding Probie's eyes at once. "The blood," Probie stutters. "W-we w-washed it off at the h-hospital Tony, remember?" And there's something pleading beneath his tone, begging him to remember, and so Tony nods.

"Right," he says like he means it, like he knows one way or the other. Tony's not sure if he's that good a liar or if McGee just wants to believe it that badly, but Probie nods back with a small, almost-smile slowly crossing over his lips.

And suddenly this moment in time, the two of them alive and well together in this hotel room, clicks into place for Tony like a bullet entering the chamber of his old back-up .38: and it's the fresh, sweet scent of the soap Tim just bathed with; the stale, soft water still lingering in Tony's mouth and mixing with the acrid burn of fresh vomit; the small, dried flakes of blood he couldn't (or maybe Probie couldn't?) quite clean off his neck; and Probie standing in front of him, brow furrowed and eyes wide, hopeful and scared but above all, relieved that Tony's slowly turning the lights back on in his brain.

McGee hadn't quite taken the time to dry his hair, and little droplets of water fall in pairs and triplets from the tips of his hair down to the towel around his shoulders. Tony zeros in on the origin of that drip. He raises his hand without thinking, only stopping it a couple inches from McGee's neck when he realizes what it's trying to do. He looks Tim right in the eye. Tim drops his gaze, and tilts his head just a little closer, granting permission. Tony lifts his hand just a little bit more, just enough to rest his fingers against the back of Probie's head at that exact point where Tony had tried so hard to put Probie back together again—his own Humpty Dumpty.

Tony digs his fingers into McGee's hair, feels around for the blood and slimy matter mixed with bone fragments that Tony's still trying not to remember too clearly. He extends his fingers, expands their search area and criteria. There's not a bump or a crack or even a missing tuft of hair. Tony steps closer so to look, to make sure, but his eyes don't see a single blemish either.

Tony steps back, mission accomplished, but it isn't until McGee's face comes back into view—his eyes soft with understanding even as his lips are pursed from nerves—that Tony honestly believes that Tim is really okay.

Tony clenches his fingers into a fist, drops his hand from where it's still extended to McGee's neck. "Fuck, Probie, I'm practically feeling you up," Tony chuffs, a quick smile teasing itself onto his lips.

McGee laughs, no, he damn near giggles, and nods his head, maybe a little too much. "Gotta get your thrills somewhere, I guess, DiNozzo." But the laugh doesn't stay long before Probie descends into that lip biting nervousness again.

When the younger man steps back, would've stepped away, Tony grabs onto his shoulder and yanks him into a hug. "Good job on the not staying dead thing," he claps McGee on the back as he keeps him in place.

"Hey, I try," McGee shrugs from inside the circle where Tony's holding onto him fiercely, but he still manages to squeeze Tony just as tightly in return.

Tony smacks McGee's back one more time before letting him go.

"Now what the hell _was_ that?" Tony presses, slapping McGee on the back of his completely intact head before walking back over to his chosen bed and sitting down on shaky legs.

"M-maybe we should w-wait for Gibbs," Probie stammers.

"You have _got _to be kidding me!" Tony explodes. "He doesn't even know where we are yet, and I need to know what the hell happened right now."

McGee's face seizes up immediately, and Tony can see right away he said something wrong. The senior agent squints at his Probie. _No, not so much wrong_, he decides, _as completely and utterly off_.

"I called Gibbs in the taxi, Tony," those baby fresh features Tim's trying to blank out manage to plead with Tony despite Tim's best efforts. "Remember?"

Tony grasps for the memory and feels like he can maybe recall Probie stuttering into the phone. "Yeah, of course," he poses, but McGee's face falls, and his hands start shaking, both of the motions writing fear straight into Probie's posture.

"I shouldn't have taken you away from the hospital," McGee laments, guilt soaking him up like a paper towel inside a waterfall. "Maybe we should go back."

Tony shakes his head, overruling the idea. "What did Gibbs say?" DiNozzo demands.

McGee rolls his shoulders, and drops his chin. "He said to wait here."

"Then that's what we'll do," Tony commands, crossing his arms.

McGee shifts his feet, eyes glancing anywhere except to Tony. Ultimately though, Probie sits down on the bed beside the one Tony's claimed. He lies back atop the covers, arms crossed under his head.

"I've never told anyone about it before," McGee whispers, his posture stiff despite the reclining position.

"You didn't tell us today, either," Tony points out, stretching back on his own bed, mirroring Probie's pose. Despite his words, a shock of gratitude trickles across Tony's nervous system at the inclusion, no matter the impetus behind it.

"I wish I knew what caused it. I wish I could have saved Kate, too," McGee pleads for understanding, voice high in his throat like he's fighting back tears.

Tony licks his lips and blinks. He'd been doing his best to push Kate to the back of his mind. "I know, kid."

An empty silence envelopes the room, fills and widens the space between the Probie and his teacher. The first sound to echo inside is a low keen from Tim's side of the room, escaping before Probie can stop it. McGee sucks in a gulp of air, and harsh, measured breaths fill the room. Tony closes his eyes against the noise, but then it's like he can't focus on anything else. He doesn't open his eyes though, feeling Tim's mourning through his bones, and it feels every bit like it's his own. It's easier to let McGee cry for them both, so Tony doesn't say a word.

"I'm sorry," McGee finally gasps out, as if it's necessary to have between them.

Tony opens his eyes, grinds his teeth. "Don't apologize."

Probie sniffles, "Right," he clears his throat, "sign of weakness."

"No," Tony corrects, "don't apologize because," he can't help a sniff himself, "don't be sorry because no matter who dies, I'll always be grateful that you're still here."

Tony feels McGee look at him but doesn't look back, not prepared for whatever he might read in the younger man's face.

The words dry up between them again, but this time they share the burden of silence together.


	3. Chapter 3

Gibbs doesn't bother with hello when he enters the motel room Tim and Tony holed up in. Instead, he walks right up to Tim, doesn't stop until their toes are almost touching. Somehow though, Tim doesn't find it to be so much intimidating as it is reassuring.

Gibbs studies Tim's face, tilting his head this way and that to check him from different angles. Finally, he steps behind him to see the sealed bullet hole beneath Tim's left ear. Gibbs reaches out a hand and probes it like Tony did. Tim leans his head forward in submission, granting greater access.

Tim's legs tremble, so he locks his knees. The rest of his muscles seem to tighten uncomfortably at his vulnerability despite the level of trust he feels for this man. He catches a faint whiff of Gibbs' aftershave, clinging to his collar maybe. It's Old Spice, just like Tim's dad uses. He concentrates on that bare whiff of recognition, focusing hard to track the scent as Gibbs maneuvers in and out of sensory range behind him.

Finally, Gibbs circles back around, stares him right in the face. "Start at the beginning," Gibbs demands.

Tim blinks what must be half a dozen times in quick succession. He feels his lips start to quiver, and tightens his jaw in hopes he can to make it stop. "I, um," he shakes his head. "The first time I, uh, died was just under two years ago," he begins and then stalls right away. He clears his throat, shifts his balance. "I'd been accepted as a candidate, but I was still finishing my masters and couldn't enter FLETC yet," he glances up to Gibbs and peeks towards Tony while he's at it.

Tim flinches under Gibbs' unwavering focus as he bids Tim without words to get on with it already. McGee's eyes skitter away involuntarily.

"It was just an accident," Tim shrugs, pursing his lips. "A huge pile-up on the interstate," he has to swallow hard to keep it in sequence, his mind already on the squeal of the tires, the screech of metal on metal, the scent of gasoline…the fire. "There was a tanker. We—" he pinches his eyes shut, and neither one of the other men says a single word, but Tim can feel the expectation in the room, can hear it in the swish of their clothes as the older agents shift in place and in their almost undetectable grunts that just barely escape them as they fight to keep themselves from speaking through Tim's silence.

"I died," Tim gets to the point. "I remember it really vividly. It was so hot. I could barely breathe through the smoke, and the smell—" he grits his teeth to keep his stomach from turning over. "I couldn't catch my breath, and when I started blacking out, I had this…flash of knowledge come to me, and I knew I was suffocating."

"Were you scared?" Tony's voice is a raspy whisper coming from the direction of the door. He can't have moved since he let Gibbs into their room.

"No," Tim shakes his head once, probes his cheek with his tongue. "I was relieved that I wasn't going to burn to death," he confides, and even though his eyes already aren't quite level enough to look at the two other men, he lowers his gaze still more.

"They must have found your body, you know," Tony shrugs just as Tim looks up to see him, "afterward."

Tim holds his gaze this time. "The accident was pretty massive. It took them days to sort through it. By the time they found me, I was alive again."

"Alive and healed," Gibbs question comes out as a statement, a request for clarification.

Tim nods.

"They had to have pulled you from the car, seen how badly burned it was," Gibbs points out.

Tim shakes his head. "I'd already broken a window and climbed out through the wreckage by the time they made it to the car. It was almost easy for me to get out once the fire was mostly gone." He twitches, turning the involuntary motion into a shrug. "EMS thought I'd escaped the car in time. They treated me for shock 'cause they couldn't see anything else wrong with me and couldn't figure out another reason I might have stayed so close to the crash site." He swipes his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. "I left the hospital without giving them my name. It wasn't _my_ car that crashed. It was a last minute trip. No one else even knew I'd gone with him."

"With who?" Tony asks haltingly.

Tim bites his lip to keep it from quivering, just barely spits out between clenched teeth, "My cousin, Denny." And there's so much Tim wants to add to that—how Denny was almost four years younger than Tim, how he'd always been his and Sarah's favorite cousin, how Denny'd been a reckless driver, how they might have avoided the crash entirely if Tim hadn't given in to Denny's insistence that they take the younger man's car. How Denny's mother cried so desperately over his closed casket afterward, and Tim never even said a word of what he knew about it.

Gibbs takes a step toward Tim, stopping just within reach. "You made the right call leaving like you did," Gibbs offers a reprieve, but his praise just makes Tim wince. "Hey," Boss softly cups Tim's shoulders, and Tim flinches from the touch, from the comfort he wants to take in it. He doesn't deserve to be consoled over this. "It was the only choice you could make, Tim."

"I never even told my family I was there with him," Tim's face collapses in on itself. "They never even knew why Denny was on that road at all," he tries but can't quite shrug off Gibbs' hand as he yells, tries to get them to see how wrong it all was. How wrong Tim had been. "It was just for a stupid book signing. There was no _reason_," and the uselessness of it all strikes him anew, hitting him as hard as it did when he woke up beside Denny's barely recognizable corpse.

Gibbs shakes his head, refusing to give up contact with Tim. "McGee, I need you to focus," he orders, adding pressure to his grip on Tim's shoulder.

Tim nods, tries to bring himself back into the moment he's in. His explanations are long overdue, and if he can't offer them to his family, then the least he can do is offer them to Gibbs. And Tony. Tim swipes at his eyes, just realizing how blurry his vision's gotten.

"Did it happen again before today?" Boss demands, eyes searching Tim's, boring right through.

Tim clears his throat and squints. "Yes," Tim shakes his head as he remembers the incident. "It wasn't bad, though. Just a stabbing. I was mugged about fourteen months ago. The guy got me in the back before I could even turn around."

"Did the mugger know that you died?" Gibbs insists.

McGee blinks, confused at the line of questioning. "I don't think so," he searches his memory. "I don't think he could have. He pulled me into the alley right beside us, and I died between an HVAC service van and a dumpster."

"So it's just the three times?" Gibbs tucks his chin just a little.

Tim shrugs even through the added weight of Gibbs hands pushing hard into his shoulders. "I've died three times, but I've been injured a lot more. I don't think anyone's witnessed me healing though," Tim adds, suddenly seeing where this conversation's going. "It's faster than it used to be, though, so the chances of getting caught are slimmer."

Gibbs finally lets go of Tim's shoulders, taking a step back. It just allows Tony to step right into Tim and start demanding his own answers.

"So how fast do you heal? Is it Wolverine-fast?" Tony waves both hands at him.

Tim almost grins at Tony's excitement, "Not at first, no," he admits, his own enthusiasm for his body's new tricks slowly peeking past the heaviness of the guilt he carries with him. "I was dead almost a whole day with the stabbing, but then I figured out that increasing my potassium intake along with adding a lot of complex sugars and diuretics magnifies this healing ability and speeds it up to the point where it's almost undetectable in small wounds. I don't even have time to bleed a lot of the time before the wound completely disappears!" and it's still incredible to him, despite how much he's tested this fantastical healing ability, that it continues to work every single time.

Gibbs moves back in on Tim, sharing the space directly in front of him with Tony. "You've been hurt on the job, then?"

"Dozens of times, at least," Tim waves his hand. Most of the times probably could have been avoided, but each incident added that much more data to the ambiguously labeled charts on his thumb drive, and it's not as though the pain was too terrible anyway. "I thought for sure Abby caught me getting electrocuted once, but I wasn't even burned at all by the time she'd crossed the room."

"What about the poison ivy?" Tony points out. "You had a pretty wicked case of it."

Tim nods, his excitement with his self-experimentation bubbling over now that he can finally share it with somebody. "I still get sick, too. Nothing very bad and not for long. In fact, I wasn't even getting sick at all anymore after my first death—not until I started the first massive doses of potassium, which leads me to believe that intracellular fluid is critical to the general healing process, but an excess thereof can actually be slightly detrimental to fighting off normal allergic irritants, viruses, and bacteria."

"Potassium?" Tony squints at him. "_That's_ why you eat all those bananas!" Tony snaps his fingers at the realization. "It was driving me crazy!"

McGee scrunches his nose, "No, actually I just like bananas. The doses of potassium I'm taking are far too massive to be satisfied with simple dietary changes. In fact, I was kind of surprised every day during the second week of the experiment that my heart didn't just give out from the lack of ionic charge."

Gibbs and Tony both squint at Tim incredulously. Then they each extend an arm and smack him hard on the back of his head.

"Hey!" Tim rubs his noggin, but it's mostly just for show as he actually finds himself reveling in that small return to normal.

"How did you even figure out about the potassium?" Gibbs asks.

"I over-hydrated at FLETC," Tim admits. "I had a pretty rough time on the obstacle courses so I drank a lot of water before, during, and after, hoping it would help me keep up. I noticed shortly after I finished the second run on that first day I'd tried it that I didn't have a single bruise on my skin even though I'd run into anything and everything on my way through the course." Tim shrugs. "After that I started experimenting with lowering my sodium levels, trying higher and higher dosages of potassium, noting that every time I dropped my electrolytes down, my healing ability jumped up, and even though my sodium levels have to be pretty miniscule inside my body, I don't even get so much as a charlie horse."

Tony bites his lip and the way he won't quite look at Tim tells the younger man Tony's about to ask Tim about today. "So why'd you have me hold your head together?"

And it's just as well that Tony can't look at him because now Tim can't look back either. "Because it helps me heal faster when my body doesn't have to regenerate new material and because I wasn't sure what it might do to my brain to lose grey matter."

Both Gibbs and Tony look Tim over in alarm.

"Did you—" Tony wiggles his fingers beside his own head, "lose anything?"

"No, I don't think so," Tim shakes his head and watches as the other men's shoulders drop in relief, "and I'm not sure if that's because I have an increased redundancy in my brain or because I just didn't lose enough tissue to really matter," Tim shrugs as he recognizes the last possibility, "or it could be that I did lose something, but I just can't tell it's gone."

Tony runs his hand through his hair and sits on his bed, head low and resting on his hands, but posture screaming with a definite sense of relief.

"No one else knows about this?" Gibbs prods.

Tim shakes his head. "No one," he confirms.

Gibbs takes a deep breath, walks a few steps away to gain a bit of distance before looking right back at Tim. "Anything more related to it?"

Tim looks down and away, even as he knows he's projecting a major tell. "No," he lies through his teeth.

But Tony and Gibbs catch it right away. Both men glare at Tim, waiting for the younger man to spit out the truth he's withholding.

McGee winces and pulls on his ear. "Okay, so there might be one more thing, but I'm not really sure."

Gibbs waves his hand in a circle, prodding him to tell them more.

"I think," Tim tilts his head, wince growing a touch, "I think there may be others like me."

"You think?" Gibbs crosses his arms over his chest and widens his stance.

"Maybe?" Tim feels his brow furrow under the force of Boss' glare. "I just—I don't know."

Tony stands, moves a touch closer to Tim. "So why do you _think_ there might be others?" he asks curiously.

Tim licks his lips, afraid he might be giving too much away just in the way he looks back at Tony. "I can feel them when they're close by."

"What do they have to say about it?" the demand comes from Gibbs this time.

Tim shakes his head. "Nothing really," and then he forces himself to drop his eyes. "I don't think all of them know."

"How could they _not_ know?" Tony asks in amazement, and it's killing Tim that this question comes from him.

His tone forces Tim to look back up at the older man. "I was normal until the first time I died. I healed the same as everybody else. I got sick the same as everybody else. I think there's something about that first time I died that," Tim winces, hating that he's having to speculate at this point, "I'm not sure, it might have triggered a dormant gene in my DNA. That's my best guess, anyway." He ducks his head as he guesses further, "maybe everybody has this gene, but it just doesn't achieve expression in most people."

"Have you talked to any of the others like you?" Gibbs stares right into Tim, and it feels like he stares right through him.

"Um," Tim bites his lips, trying not to be caught in a lie again. "The ones who seem to know about it get away from me as fast as they can. The first one just said, 'I don't want to fight' and the second one kept repeating that he's 'not in the game'."

"'Not in the game'?" Gibbs questions. "What does that mean?"

Tim shakes his head. "I have no idea."

"What about the ones who don't seem to know?" Gibbs prods. "What is it about them that makes you think they're different?"

Tim locks his jaw, locks his eyes with Gibbs'. "It feels different," Tim confesses, "softer somehow. The feeling's not as strong when I'm around him."

"Him?" Gibbs latches onto the word immediately.

Tim squeezes his eyes shut, covers them with his hand for good measure.

"Who?" Gibbs demands, his hands on Tim's forearms, pulling, but Tim shakes his head.

"No!" McGee yells and yanks himself out of Gibbs' grip. "What if I say something to him, and he does something stupid! What if he gets himself killed thinking he's going to wake up again! I can't take the chance that I'm wrong! I _won't _risk that!" Tim pleads his case.

"You can still tell _us_! It's not like we're going to _say_ anything!" Tony hollers back, seeming to find insult in Tim's reticence—and wow—the irony.

Gibbs lays a hand on Tony's bicep, calming him by a hair. "Except we wouldn't have to say anything," Gibbs eyes Tim a little more shrewdly, "because it's one of us. Isn't it, Tim?"

Tony glances between Gibbs and Tim in disbelief, obviously not buying into Gibbs' theory. "Wh—" he nearly guffaws until he stops and really looks at Tim, really sees the broken expression Tim knows is spilling across his own face.

Tony shrugs off Gibbs' light fingers, ducks his head just a little and moves into Tim's space—not enough to be an intrusion, but just enough to make Tim focus his total attention right on Tony. "Is it me?" Tony begs, his voice a wisp of air barely making it to Tim's ears.

Tim shakes his head and sees Tony's expression fall for half a second before he says, "I won't tell you."

"I have a right to know if it's me," Tony wraps both hands around Tim's upper arms. "If it's me I could have done something. I was on that roof with Kate today, and I could have—"

"No!" Tim hollers and shoves Tony away. "That's exactly why I can't tell you who it is. You both take too many chances as it is, and what if I'd said something, and it didn't work like I thought it would?" he huffs, "I'm not even sure it'll keep working with _me_ every time, and I have no idea if I'm right about why I can," McGee literally bites his tongue, "why I can feel one of you. And what if I _am_ wrong, Tony?"

Tony shifts his feet, and his voice is soft, almost tear-filled, no doubt thinking of Kate and the million what-ifs that could have happened today, "I would take that chance, Probie."

"But I won't," and McGee feels steel lining up his back like it rarely does, like it rarely matters enough to do.

And Tony's eyes are hurt, his lips pinched. He turns to Gibbs, obviously hoping to find an ally in the older man, but Gibbs only offers a hard look that tells them he's siding with McGee. Tim lets out a breath of relief, not sure how he might have fared against both men if they'd combined their efforts. Tony offers them his back, slams the door open and zooms right out, his whole body screaming even as his mouth stays shut.

Gibbs gently closes the door behind Tony. He glances out the window, apparently following Tony's progress as the other man walks away from them.

"You were right not to tell him," Gibbs speaks softly as they both watch Tony stalk outside. "He'd go off half-cocked all the time if he knew it was him."

And Tim breathes a sigh of relief—glad Gibbs was able to guess it, glad Gibbs knows he shouldn't hope for the sort of second chances that keep coming Tim's way. "I'm sorry it's not you," he tells his Boss, even though a part of Tim's really not sorry at all.

Gibbs turns back to Tim and smiles. "I'm not," he shakes his head. Then Gibbs points his hand towards the bed Tim claimed and moves over with him to sit across from him on Tony's bed. "There's something else we need to talk about."

Tim furrows his brow.

"Ari thinks you're dead. I want him to keep thinking that."

Tim shakes his head, "Boss, I'm the only one who's truly safe against him," he argues, a knee-jerk response.

"No," Gibbs shakes his head, "you're the one who has the most to lose if he finds out about this," Gibbs points his palm at Tim's body. "I want you and Tony to hide out for a while."

"But Kate—"

"I gave the investigation into Kate's death to Balboa's team."

"What?" McGee yells. "You can't! She's—"

"I know," Gibbs lays a calm hand on Tim's knee, silencing the younger man at once. "But the living have to take precedence over the dead, and I won't lose another one of you to him."

"Tony's going to be so mad at you," Tim leads, knowing the argument won't begin to change Gibbs' mind but hoping anyway.

"Tony will understand that I need him here with you right now," Gibbs squeezes Tim's knee. "And he needs to be here with you," Gibbs points out, making Tim's new orders implicit with those few words.

Tim nods, though reluctantly. "I'll have his six," McGee acknowledges the tacit command.

"I know you will," and when Tim looks up at Gibbs' words, he sees the older man's confidence in him. It makes Tim sit up a little straighter.

Gibbs stands up, and Tim follows him to the door. "It'll be over soon," he promises Tim, and then Gibbs walks outside and over to Tony where he's standing by Gibbs' car, ready to go.

The conversation the two men have isn't long, and much to Tim's surprise, he can see in Tony's body language how quickly the senior agent capitulates to Gibbs' request. Tim watches as Gibbs drives away, and Tony jogs back to the room.

"We need to change hotels," Tony orders Tim the moment he steps back inside.

Tim nods. "Okay," he says, and he feels the tension in his spine release all at once. He doesn't know if it's because Tony's taking charge of the situation, easing the pressure from Tim's shoulders and letting him breathe again or if it's because Tony seems to have accepted Gibbs' decree as well as Tim's secrets—both the secret Tim shared and the one he wouldn't tell.

"Hey," Tony stops Tim from moving towards his bag of bloody clothes with a light touch on Tim's forearm. Tony's face scrunches, and Tim can almost see the myriad of things his partner wants to say but doesn't. "I've got your back, Probie," he finally tells McGee.

"And I've got yours," Tim levels his gaze at his friend.

Tony holds that stare a moment, and then he smiles, "Yeah, I know you do," and there's so much trust in that statement that Tim can almost pretend Tony already knows the last big secret Tim holds close against his chest and away from Tony.

Tim blinks away and purses his lips together. Tony'll figure out how much he and Tim have in common soon enough without Tim saying a word about it. Tim only wonders how long he can possibly keep his mouth shut.

END


End file.
